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Blinded by De-light (sessions 3 and 4)
After our fight with the kinda-cute, blue flying things, we took a short rest and ate before heading back into the rainforest. The Admiral kept on grumbling and correcting me every time I called it a forest. Though I don’t know why it’s called a rainforest. We’ve been here three days so far, and it hasn’t rained a drop. Anyhow, we only managed to get a little bit lost in the rainforest this time, so by nightfall, we were looking for a place to camp. We came across a cave, which seemed like a good place to stay—you know, in case it rained in the mysteriously dry rainforest. Well, it seemed someone else had the same idea, because the cave was inhabited by three ugly, little creatures who spoke some garbled, guttural language. Two carried spears and danced around Praxias and Varis, and the other one stayed in the back waving his staff around and speaking in his strange tongue. It didn’t take much time to figure out the ugly one in the back was the one who needed to be dealt with first, so as the Admiral, Praxis, and Varis focused on the two with spears, I launched magickal attacks at the one in the back. The boys made quick work of the two brutes and helped me finish off the one with the staff. By this point we were pretty beaten and battered and really needed to rest. Cautiously, we went to the back of the cave to make camp. Once back there we discovered a bunch of rocks stacked to the cave’s ceiling that blocked an obvious opening. When we listened quietly, we could hear that there was definitely something—or more like several somethings—alive and moving on the other side. I was not ''looking forward to another fight. What if it was some grisly beast that the ugly little creatures had trapped in the cave? Praxis, being the smallest of us, decided to climb the rock pile and see what was on the other side. He promised to be quiet, but he still managed to make quite a commotion. When he found out who was over there, I felt really bad about wanting to wait until morning to investigate. Those poor people had been imprisoned by the ugly, little creatures! Unlike the mean, dark-skinned people with the skulls painted on their faces, these people had tattoos of animals all over their bodies. We shared our rations with them and I tended to their wounds as they told us about what had happened to their small village. Outlanders, not so unlike us, had taken over the village. They had captured or killed all the men and forced the women to continue working for them in the village. The outlanders were at the command of a dog-faced man. Now, I know some people are ugly, but I've never heard anyone call someone a ''dog. I asked them to describe the man, and as it turned out he literally had the face of a dog, fur and all. Having been trapped for days, our meager rations weren’t enough to fill their bellies. They needed to hunt, and I was more than happy to join them. I love new people! So many stories to share. After the natives had hunted and cooked their meal, we settled in for the night, determined to leave for the Coyomi village at dawn. We set out early, much to the disdain of the Admiral. The villagers were somber, and I knew they must be worried about their wives and daughters and what had become of their village. I clutched my vial of sand from Laara ‘Tal, sand that I realized didn’t look so unlike the sand on the beaches of this unknown island, and whispered a prayer to whichever god might hear me. Soon, a clearing up ahead could be seen, with the tops of grass huts visible over the lush, yet fairly dry, rainforest. We stopped behind some squat palms to get the lay of the land. There seemed to be a clearing in the middle of two rows of straw huts. In the center of one row, was a much larger hut with two, hanging, dead-yet-somehow-alive creatures suspended from the roof supports. All the huts were built off the ground, which would hopefully prove to be an advantage for us, as it would be easier to sneak into the village. The saddest sight was to see all the women, dressed in white, with chains around their ankles. It was an eerie sound, the moans and deathly quails of the dead with the pitiful shuffling sounds of the woman tethered to the ground. My heart ached to free them, but we had to deal with the threat first. The large, dog-faced man came out of the bigger hut with one of those nasty native guys; the ones with the skulls painted on their face. They were walking a path between the huts when Varis got the idea to be sneaky and hide in the bushes to surprise him with a crossbow bolt to the face. Good plan, poorly executed. He missed. That pretty much told them exactly where he was and we had to rush in to help. Fido had some friends of his own, spilling out of the huts when he gave a howl. One of the little meanies pulled the blindfolds off the dead-yet-not-dead things, and they began shooting some nasty stuff at us! Poor Praxis was taking it from both ends. The dog-headed man was doing his best to kill Praxis, but Praxis was giving more than he was getting. Unfortunately, the dead-but-alive rotting guys were also attacking Praxis and draining him of his energy. I had to get in there and try to patch him up, because he didn’t have the energy to do it himself. Well, I managed to save Praxis, but things get painfully fuzzy after that. All I remember is a bright light that was brighter than anything I had seen before, but it didn’t hurt my eyes. Soon, shadows came into focus as people. The people smiled and greeted me kindly. They worse loose, stark white clothing and their hair was neatly kept. They were, all of them, beautiful. They told me to be at peace, and to rest. I felt my muscles uncoil and relax, and then I began to tell them of my journeys. Nothing relaxes me more than reminiscing. The kindly people kept disappearing. One by one, they would vanish. “Where has everyone gone?” “Ah, to check on something, child. Hush now, I am waiting for news.” “News? What news? About my friends? Oh, I would love to know how they are. Or maybe news from my family? I do miss them so. Or perhaps the good gents of the Free—“ “No, child. Hush,” he said with a hint of anger twisting his once-kind features. “News of if we can … erm should send you back. For I think you have more work to do in this life, yes. I see a long future for you.” “You do?” The kindly man paused, and then nodded as if receiving some unspoken message. “Yes. Goodbye now … and good riddance.” The next thing I remember, I woke up with a gorgeous, tattooed native woman leaning over me and chanting. The woman, Snake Sister, a priestess of the Coyomi tribe, told us of her tribe’s history. They once lived on the larger island in a larger village. They would carry out regular sacrifices to appease the water demon. As time went on, the water demon became hungrier and hungrier. There was already dissension among the tribe when the meteor struck. The meteor left the village in ruin, and the tribes split. The Quomoqui, the skull-faced natives, stayed on the larger island, while the Coyomi settled on the smaller island. In just the last few weeks, more and more Quomoqui, along with some outlanders, have been making regular trips to the smaller island and killing or capturing the Coyomi. The small village does not have the man power to fight the larger and more ruthless Quomoqui. Snake Sister also told us of the Zombie farm and of the tale of the Thirsty Grandmother, along with helping us put major landmarks on our map. We would help the Coyomi reclaim their ancestral village from the Quomoqui, and get to keep any treasure or riches we found in the process. Snake Sister also told us about the sacred pool guarded by the serpent statue. She kissed Varis—kissed him!—and instructed us all to do the same to the serpent statue at the sacred pool. That was a bit odd, but I wasn’t about to argue with the woman who saved my life. I begged Snake Sister to come with us, but it was clear that her villagers needed her guidance more than we did, so we set off alone. Varis really wanted to go get the hidden boat and sail to the north side of the big island to search the sea caves. For some reason, caves equal treasure in his book. That seems strange to me, because so far, caves have only equaled ugly, little creatures and stinky, human captives—neither of which are treasure. So we manage to stay on track for once and make our way to the cave with the hidden boat that Snake Sister told us about. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s more of those same ugly creatures guarding the boat. Only this time, they even went a step further and dug a trench in front of the cave that smelled like the foulest stuff ever. We were careful to avoid the filthy trench and went head long into battle for what turned out to be a wimpy little boat, no larger and in no better shape than our very own dingy. Once we set sail, though, I had to admit that being at sea was a nice change from constantly getting lost in the rainforest on an island with no rain. We were about half way between the islands, further out to sea to avoid any tides that would derail our course, when we spotted a shark swimming around our boat. Well, I don’t think Varis has done much time on the open waters, because rather than avoiding the shark, he decided to shoot it. Yes, he shot the shark, spilled its blood in the water, and made it go into a frenzy. At this point, we thought our only option was to kill the shark to stop him from ramming the already-fragile boat. That plan might have worked, too, if the blood in the water hadn’t attracted all the shark’s sharky friends. They all started ramming the boat, causing us to have to brace ourselves for fear of going overboard. Wouldn’t you know it, butter fingers Zaly loses her grip and takes a dip in the ocean. For the second time in two days, I thought I was going to die, which isn’t very good odds for me as I actually did die the first time. My dear friend Praxis came to my rescue and pulled me back into the boat just as the sharks were nipping at my heels. If it weren’t for our frantic, adrenaline-induced paddling, we would have died at sea. Once back on shore, we slept the night on the beach, and woke to walk the strip of land that appeared between the islands at low tide. There were zombies on the strip of land, stuck in the sand up to their bellies. Praxis kicked one with his boot to see if they could wiggle out of the sand; it couldn’t. We just walked around them, giving them a wide berth, and continued on our way. Once we crossed to the larger island, we saw a totem made from human skulls and other bits of bones and clothing. Varis scaled the totem to retrieve a leather nap sack, using eye sockets and rib bones for finger and toe holds. If you ask me, that was no way to treat the dead, and I told Varis that much. He just shrugged, opened the sack and rifled through its contents. Inside the sack was a washed out note that said “treasure,” followed by many unreadable words, and then “swamp tower.” That was enough information for him, so we headed toward the nearest tower on our map. When we got a little closer, we could see a large, winged creature flying above the tower. The base was thickly shrouded by jungle—which I found to be a more accurate word than rainforest. Wanting to avoid being bird food, we decided to skirt along the jungle’s edge while still keeping the shoreline within view to avoid getting lost. We approached the base of the 40ft high tower that had no entry way at the bottom. The only way up was a ladder that scaled the side. The two boys, Praxis and Varis, decided to show off and scaled the side of the stone tower, ignoring the perfectly good ladder that I decided to take. The Admiral thought it prudent to stay on the ground to watch our backs. Once the boys were on top of the tower, they discovered a guard. The white skull painted on his face let them know the guard wasn’t going to be the friendly sort. He blew his conch shell necklace and two more winged beasts cawed and clawed at the wind to descend on the tower. The guard, an elder, didn’t put up much of a fight, but the birds managed to be difficult. They would swoop in, claw and bite, and take back to the air before you could land a shot on them. We finally managed to best them, with quite a few wounds of our own, only to discover—much to Varis’s chagrin—that the tower was largely treasure-less. ~Zaly For next week's session summary, click here.